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Month: August 2011

It has to be asked if the Riots this week have not been a Godsend to the governing elite in allowing them to prepare for the outcomes resulting from the ongoing. but unspoken, reduction in the Energy and Resource Intensity of SystemUK. This comment from Twitter today

Comment: Britain is preparing for Peak Oil the only way she knows how: Calling on the armed forces, and arming the police.

Peter Oborne speaks elequently today of the failings of the ruling elite in government and business http://tgr.ph/pqdVWP and it reminded me of my letter to him at the Daily Mail in July 2008 relating to an article, again about the state of the UK and the military.

DD

Dear Peter

I am impressed with your article in the Mail today and I copy below part of the email to my MP I copied to you a short while ago.

“I don’t blame a particular person or party but we have a systemic failure of proactive action.

The society we have created has replaced personal duty with personal freedom to the point that senior service personnel are now pointing out the incongruity of the reward those who are attempting to protect our way of life are receiving, referenced to others

I want to be wrong, but soon, senior officers will be questioning the ability of our political system to deliver the actions needed to transition society to the low carbon future we will inherit, as I have said, by design or negligence.”

The concept of political neutrality has been core of our armed services for centuries and British service personnel have been treated abominably on many occasions down these centuries

It has been clear to me for years that our failure to be proactive and think holistically would lead to the point in history we find ourselves. I copy below my comment from 2002, which predicts the situation in which an outcome such as knife crime could develop. http://bit.ly/pVG3Md

We are powering into energy oblivion and someone will need to take action, and Senior Officers must be aware that their ability to maintain a strategic and tactical capability will be seriously compromised by the time the new carriers and JSF are due to come into service

This from the current edition of Business Week

“However, it appears that for at least the next five years, and possibly longer, the Saudis are likely to produce less crude than promised, according to fresh data on the kingdom’s oil fields obtained July 9 by BusinessWeek. Saudi officials have said they would increase production capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day next year, from the current 10 million barrels a day, and could even ramp up to as much as 15 million barrels a day if the market demanded it. As proof to a skeptical audience, the normally highly secretive Saudis were a bit more open, escorting journalists on a visit to their new Al Khurais field (BusinessWeek.com, 6/23/08), east of Riyadh, and disclosing some field data.”

We see in the UK civil unrest that was predictable as a result of our failure to think at system level and then having to deal with the resultant failure demand in society by constantly changing end of pipe solutions.

Our continuing to think that we can return to a multi-planet economic path flies in the face of observable reality and can only lead to the further weakening in the cohesion of society. My comment in 2002 pointed this out.

DD

Comment on the North West Region’s Framework for Employment Skills and Action (FRESA) 29 August 2002

“Looking at the FRESA, I feel I must make a comment arising from paragraph 24, page 9 copied here

“Job losses are expected to be dominated by males, while a large proportion of job gains will go to females. Some 60% of all job gains are expected to be part-time and the bulk of such jobs are expected to be in hotels and catering, business and other services. In terms of job losses the bulk are expected to come in elementary trades, process operatives, skilled metal and construction trades. Major gains are projected in caring and health, teaching and administrative and clerical occupations”

This seems to me to be a forecast of potential disaster in the UK. It will at best lead to a position where a large proportion of males feel excluded with probable social unrest. Any gains are predicated on the assumption that service industries will grow and this is already under pressure with the possible transfer of call centre jobs to India (denied).

I recognise that these are problems the Learning and Skills Council cannot solve but they must be acknowledged. Attached is an email to Channel 4 News in response to discussions on juvenile crime. I strongly feel that the issue of National Service – or service for the nation, not primarily the traditional military service, must be addressed to provide constructive work for primarily males across the age range that will otherwise be idle.

This can be tied in to the work required to create sustainable development at home and abroad, which fits in with the thoughts expressed in my original submission to the Regional Strategy; that the Region and the UK cannot rely on classical economic solutions to prosper in this century.”

The cry will go out that we cannot afford to do this, but in a world of falling energy and resource intensity, can we afford not to?

After 150 years the World is coasting to the top of an oil curve but the view over the top is still obscured and we cannot see how steep the rest of the roller-coaster ride is
-whether the steepness of the useful energy curve will cause the car to come off the rails, or if we have the knowledge and skills to manage the transformational change required in societies and organisations to stay on them.
The aim of this blog is to bring together the knowledge and skills that will enable this tranformation. Your constructive comments are vital and welcome